Tuesday, September 29, 2015

A few years back, I noted
that a major do-it-yourself moving company was having to pay employees
to drive trucks back to California due to net out-migration. Now,
the Washington Post reports on a more comprehensive picture,
obtained from IRS data, of migration from high-tax, high-regulation
"blue" states to comparatively free "red" states. Stephen Moore
concludes:

The latest Census and IRS data merely confirm
what Americans can see every day with their own two eyes. Red states
are a magnet. There's a downside to this for sure. Conservatives have
a legitimate gripe that as blue staters come into their prosperous red
states, they try to turn them blue. That's happened in New Hampshire
where Massachusetts transplants vote for the left-wing policies they
just fled.

But the underlying trend is unmistakable:
Liberal blue states are economic dinosaurs.

Will they
change their ways before they go the way of Detroit and become
extinct?

The antecedent in Moore's last sentence is wrong:
It should be "Americans," as, for example, the pro-union bumper
stickers I keep seeing as I drive through moribund St. Louis every day
attest. Too many Americans think they can have both the fruits of freedom
and loot -- be it in the form of hand-outs or favors obtained through
government force. If they keep choosing the latter, they will ultimately kill the
golden goose of the former.